What if Christ Had
Not Come?
Dear Sisters
and Brothers in Christ,
Every Sunday
we come to the Holy Mass as the best worship which we offer to God through His
beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
In return
for this religious observance, we receive the double gift from God our heavenly
Father: we listen to His living Word that enlightens our mind, guides our way
to the saving Truth; on the other hand, we receive the Body and Blood of Christ
to be our food for ever-lasting life in God’s Kingdom.
In order
that after we leave the church at the end of this Sunday Holy Mass celebration,
there could be something remaining in our mind and in our heart concerning the
message which God wants to send to each and one of us, His children, we shall
learn the main topic of the Liturgy of the Word of this Sunday.
The First
Reading taken from the Book of Job tells us the reality that human life has
nothing good at all. From the beginning
to the end of his life, man keeps facing suffering, both physical and mental,
calamities, both natural and manmade, and finally death. You may say, if you like, that Job is rather
pessimistic. However, in the light of
Christian faith, what Job thinks of is perfectly correct. Humanity under the power of the forces of
evil remains an endless misery, an unbroken cycle of hardship.
The Gospel
according to Saint Mark reports on how Jesus was busy to preach the Good News
of liberation, not in the limited political sense, but in the complete meaning that
humanity needs to be totally freed from the hand of Satan. For this reason, Christ heals the sick, binds
the brokenhearted, raises the dead, and drives out the devil. But the sublime act of His love for us
sinners was, in order to save us, His sacrifice of His own life on the Cross through
which He definitely destroyed Satan’s evil kingdom of sin and death.
Saint Paul,
in the second Reading taken from his First Letter to the Corinthians, urges all
of us Christians to respond properly to the love and care of Christ Who died
for us, by taking up the task of being witnesses of His Good News of
salvation. We should do this willingly
and free of charge as a gesture of gratitude to Him Who so loved us that He
laid down His life so that we may live as a new creation, happy and free and
proud to be God’s image again.
To be able
to accomplish this noble mission of being light of the world, salt of the
earth, and leaven in the dough, we need Christ’s strength which we are about to
receive in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood.
Let us approach
the Holy Table of Christ’s sacrifice with living faith that He is present here
and now, and with burning love we will be united with Him.
Fr. Francis Nguyen, O.P.
